Lyra is the wierdest puppy I’ve ever raised.  Certainly she is helping me understand what is meant by a “fear period,” because her ups and downs are much more pronounced than what I’ve seen in my other dogs.

In a two week span, she’s gone from being highly social, to worried about people, to social – most of the time.  Every fifth person still causes her concern for absolutely no reason that I can detect.  She’s not having a meltdown but definitely showing some glitches in her self confidence.  I see the same with places and things; the world is no longer her oyster.  My best guess is that Lyra looked around and realized that there could be threats out there.  Night exacerbates the issue, but even in bright daylight she can have weird moments.  I don’t “do” anything about these moments except make sure she’s not overwhelmed.  If she vocalized in any way, I’d remove her from the situation, but mostly she just flattens her ears and skulks around.  I give her time to adjust, and if she doesn’t become comfortable with the object of concern in a short period of time (30 seconds or so) then I try to move her a little further away or just leave the area altogether.  The people worries are much more pronounced than the environmental ones.

Yesterday I took her out for some work in the neighborhood, and she was terrific!  Happy and engaged; curious about the environment but very comfortable working for me too.  Then today I took her to a public garden.  She was happy to explore, but her ears weren’t consistently up, and her ears are a pretty good barometer of happiness.  She did lead the way through the garden, and after walking on the paths for five or ten minutes, we left.  We’ll see if she’s better next time.  Needless to say, any plans I may have had for attention work were wiped out.    Some days she cannot do anything in public; I’m happy just to get her ears up and her tail wagging.

In direct contradiction to her unsureness with random people, places and things, she’s starting to show me some hardness at home, which is very much welcome.  Today when I asked her to give a toy back, she said “no”.   It wasn’t a loud no, but she knew what I wanted and she didn’t give it up.  I’m thrilled!  Someday I’ll have her full cooperation, but I want to earn that cooperation, not recieve it because she doesn’t have the personal strength to argue with me.   It’s hard to have a true teammate unless you are very close to each other in power.  I want 51% of the power and 49% in Lyra; this is what I have with Cisu, Juno and Raika, and it is a joy to work any of them.  Right now I have too much power with Lyra ( to be expected with a puppy), so I’m glad to see her developing more core strength.    I happen to like a dog that has opinions and gives me a little grief, because I think it makes for a much stronger competition dog in the long run.  It’s good if I have to earn Lyra’s cooperation instead of getting it because she is emotionally weak inside.  It’s also an absolute necessity in a good Schutzhund dog, and who knows if we’ll pursue that.  I’d like it to be an option anyway.

I adore her.  I find her ups and downs fascinating, and trying to find the right combination of motivators is a challenge.  Right now I’m working on getting her to  run to her platform (as opposed to trotting), so we’ll see what it takes to get her there.

Right now, Lyra has about one great session for every three mediocre ones.  There seem to be several things going on.

For starters, she’s teething.  I think that makes her feel a little off.

She is also in something of a fear period.  I can’t work her in the dark because she thinks the boogey men come out after dark.  I have tried working her through that,  but recently I realized that she needs to sit and stare into the dark while I give her the occasional cookie.

Dogs barking in the distance upset her and critters rattling in the bushes are to be watched carefully.

Smells are…fascinating.  It feel like she’s just disovered how fabulous her nose really is, and she can’t get it off the ground.

Until yesterday, I was trying to work “over” these things.  That means trying to be more exciting than what is out there.  But then I realized that I was working too hard….it’s not my job to get more and more interesting when she’s distracted.  My job is to be interesting when she shows the interest and ability to work.  If I start begging, pleading or demanding, I’ve reversed our roles and I’ll be begging or demanding for life, so last night I vowed to relax and let her work through it herself.

What a difference!  After ten minutes of Lyra sniffing, worrying and visiting, I started to see glimmers of my old puppy.  We spent about 25 minutes together, which was just enough to remind me of what I tell other people all of the time; “Patience, grasshopper.”

Today we had a really really great training session. Where’s the video camera when you need it?

No way to know what the next session might look like, and in my head I know it doesn’t matter.  I just needed my head to remind my heart.

Today I removed two of Lyra’s teeth playing tug.  That second tooth forced me to admit that I need to put the toy away.  Regretfully.  What can I say; besides the fact that I have a very strong preference for training with toys, the other reality is that Lyra’s food drive is still minimal, and during teething we are going to be restricted to the picky details as opposed to the high intensity stuff that I prefer.

I also decided that I need to get a little more serious about doing work that would allow Lyra to work in protection, should I decide to go that route in the future.  For starters, I need to buy a new clatter stick; mine has lost it’s ability to clatter. And I need to start desensitizing her.  She’d probaby be fine if she first saw the stick as an adult, but why take a chance?  The ability to tolerate a stick, or (even better) to associate it with the fun of biting, is important, and best not left to chance.  I’m a little sorry I didn’t start this when she could still play tug – it’s more logical to associate the stick with bitework than with pieces of food that she’s lukewarm about.

Here’s today’s lesson.  I cut out the middle which was “more of the same”.  I trained for eight minutes total.

In this video I cover:  precision heeling, precision fronts, the down/recall hand signals, go outs, and a bit of drive building for food.

Today’s blog post was supposed to be a video illustration on teaching a dog to “out” (let go) of a toy.

Lyra had other ideas.  She decided that my video assistant, Katie, was a potentially scary person, and playing with me and my silly toys was not as important as monitoring the lady with a camera in front of her face.

This post is now a video illustration of the problem, and I how I chose to address it.

I start by asking myself,  ”How great is the dog’s fear?”  In this case, Lyra’s fear is mild.  Most of the time she is not watching Katie – a very concerned dog would not take her eyes off of the fright inducing circumstance. Lyra is not alarm barking, growling, hiding behind me, or stopping motion to stare for seconds at a time.  She is curiosity sniffing the ground (not avoidance sniffing), and she able to function (albeit at a low level) with me and a toy.

Under these circumstances, I decided to ignore the issue and let Lyra figure out for herself that there was nothing to be concerned about.  I made no effort to hurry this process.   I do not introduce her to Katie – she does not need to meet Katie to understand that she is not a threat.  I do not encourage Katie to make friends.  Yes, that would make Lyra comfortable, and Lyra would see that Katie was a friendly, harmless person, but Lyra already knows that people who call to her are friendly and harmless.  She also knows that video cameras are harmless, when held by people she knows well (such as my husband).  Now she needs to learn that new people who stand and stare in her direction with cameras are also harmless.  THAT is the issue to be dealt with, not cheerful people calling her to visit while holding cameras. I want her to learn that staring strangers with video cameras are neutral people; nothing to worry about.  The way to learn that is to have neutral to positive experiences in the presence of such people.

If you change the interaction, then you’ve dealt with a NEW interaction, not the problem inducing one.    This might have value if the dog were completely over faced.  For example, if no one had ever videotaped Lyra, or if she were uncomfortable with people in general, then I would have treated this situation differently.

Let’s look at the tape:

5 sec:  Lyra moves sideways away from Katie while watching her.  This is my first indication that there is an issue.

11 sec: Lyra comes when I call her, but keeps her front end partially oriented towards Katie rather than coming into me directly.

25, 31, 33 and 36 sec:  Lyra moves towards me to engage with the toy, but sneaks quick peaks at Katie

36sec:  Lyra is offered the toy but she does not grab it.  She looks at Katie instead.

42 sec: I start moving slightly away from Katie.  The additional distance allows Lyra to function and to play.

49 sec:  I pull her back into Katie’s direction and she disengages to look at Katie again.

50 sec:  She is able to fetch in a direction away from Katie, but all the way back she is looking back and forth between the two of us.

1min, 2sec:  Lyra continues to orient with her head/front in the direction of Katie.

1 min, 14 sec: Note that Lyra is again able to engage if I increase distance from Katie.

1 min, 18 sec:  Lyra is beginning to relax.  She is playing with me (though tentatively) and maintains focus.  She is able to keep her rear end to Katie, which suggests much improvement in her comfort level.  While I can “feel” that she is not 100%, I also see that we’ve progressed from where the session started.

After this I stopped playing with Lyra and chatted with Katie for another five minutes before ending the session.  During this time, Lyra wandered around the yard, mostly sniffing.  She also walked around near us as we talked.  Katie never visited with her, but if she were to visit, this would have been a good time for it.  Then Lyra could make the association between staring camera people becoming  social people later in time.  I chose not to go this route because I prefer not to have new people interact with Lyra in my training area.

If I had been carrying food on my body, I would have given up the toy idea almost instantly, and I would have worked with the food.  But in real life, you get what you get, and you deal with it according to the circumstances as they are at that moment in time.  Hence, the interactions as shown on tape.   Hindsight is 20/20.

Most of my training time with Lyra is really structured play – play that gets me the behaviors I want with maximum joy and energy.

There are also a few skills that are more easily mastered when the dog is calm.  For these, I use food as the reward.  Food leads to a thinking, clear head.  With Lyra, I work on these types of skills in small doses since her food drive is limited.

In this video, I’m showing her skill building work in the following areas:

1)      Pivots in “front” position.   I have her front feet on a Frisbee to help her – she knows that her feet must remain on the Frisbee above all else.   If I say “come” while I pivot, she’ll try and sit when I stop (I didn’t teach this but I think my husband did).  She is accurate enough in her pivots that I am allowing this behavior to emerge – I would suggest you avoid the sit until your dog is reasonably accurate on the pivots in front without them.  Look for a straight body when you stop moving – straight bodies with static front feet tend to end with straight, tucked sits.  Be very careful about your hand position when you pivot and when you reward – try and keep your hands out the picture so your puppy does not rely on your hands in front to understand what is expected here.  When you do reward, make sure your hand position reinforces the dog’s straight body position – normally your midline.  Alternate your reward hand.

2)      Pivots in” heel” position.  Again, I use the Frisbee to stabilize her front end. I have named this skill “get in” – pivot next to me while I move away from you.  Note that my choice of hand position for feeding reinforces a straight body.   I do not ask for a sit when we stop – that will come later.

3)      Positions – once again, that handy Frisbee is called into play.  Lyra is practicing her sit, down and stand commands.   I lure with my hand into the correct position.  The Frisbee is to keep her front feet steady; I want her to do any combination of positions without moving her front feet.  We have a long road ahead – I’d estimate that we’ve done these about 500 times, yet she seems to have relatively little concept that the words I’m using predict the hand cue.   I have chosen not to shape her positions because I am very particular about how they are completed – no movement of front end – and I do not have enough confidence in my shaping skills to believe  that I can get that result at this time.  I also do not delay very long between the verbal and the hand cue – I have found that if I delay she tends to start moving her front feet – my number one priority here is no front foot movement.

4)     Mark – while holding Lyra back, I toss a highly visible cookie (goldfish!) straight ahead with my right hand.  I then switch my hands so my right hand holds her ruff, and my left hand gives a signal on the side of her head to indicate where she should look. I then release her to the cookie.  This will give us a head start on the glove exercise and the go outs for Utility – my hand on the side of Lyra’s head will mean “look out there where I’m indicating”. Combined with the “I’m holding your ruff so go out with speed” cue, I hope to get a clean mark and a lot of speed going away.  Even with the goldfish, I can see she has trouble finding the food at a distance.

5)      To end the session, I transition her to play by throwing a toy for her final mark.

Wow; almost four months old now!  Lyra is losing her baby teeth and her soft, furry wool.  I miss the wool.  The baby teeth…not so much.

When I brought Lyra home, I focused on her tug and retrieve skills.  Playing tug was easy since Lyra was born with talent in this area.  Retrieve went through phases; sometimes she would consistently retrieve objects back to me, and other times she preferred to own them by herself.

When Lyra became fairly consistent about both retrieving random objects and bringing them back, I started working hard on teaching her to drive back to me – with the same intensity I expect to see going away from me.  I’ve been delighted with her progress in this area, so much so that I had somewhat neglected her driving AWAY from me.

A little over a week ago, I started working harder on Lrya’s drive away from me.  You can see the first steps of that work in the post here:

http://denisefenzi.com/2011/11/23/lyra-16-weeks-starting-opposition-reflex/

Today I took stock of all of her play skills to date, and I taped this session:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRN3dIGFkDs

1)  I am very happy with her improvement in driving away and her opposition reflex.  She is comfortable with my grabbing her ruff, and she looks where I throw food or toys.  Next I’ll try to get that degree of drive towards a target or a dumbbell.

2)  I am very happy with her toy return. She comes back with speed, and she immediately jumps at my hands to get me to reingage.  She enjoys hanging from the toy, so I reward her fast, upward returns by grabbing the toy and briefly taking her off the ground.

3)  As a bonus, she now jumps at my hands and plays with me before we start training -whether or not I’m holding a toy.  That is huge progress, and suggests I may start attempting to play without toys again.  It’s possible she’s ready.  Until now, play without toys led to my becoming the toy; that was a painful result.  Now she can participate in a bit of personal play and a little work – even without a toy reward to focus on.

Nice session. I’m glad I taped it because I was super proud of her.